OVER 100 young people drawn from the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society’s (ZRCS) eight provinces in the country converged at Sanganayi Creek campsite on the shores of Lake Mazvikadei near Banket to take part in a youth camp.
By Staff Reporter
Running under the theme, Building Youth Resilience and Serving Humanity, the five-day camp was organised by the ZRCS National Youth Council and participants were young people drawn from the organisation’s youths ranging from 17 years to young adults.
The ZRCS National Youth Council is a group of 13 youth members who represent and serve the youth volunteers of the ZRCS. Drawing upon the creativity, dedication and energy of youth, the National Youth Council promotes young volunteers as an organisational resource.
“As a humanitarian organisation which is volunteer-driven, it is within the ZRCS youth strategy to focus on empowering the youths to be self-sustaining economically so that they become meaningful volunteers who have excess resources to support the humanitarian mission of the Red Cross,” said ZRCS secretary-general Maxwell Phiri.
Participants who included youths and youth advisors were taken through a number of activities that looked at issues around leadership, diplomacy and integrity. Redeemed House Of God Church founder and renowned mentor Nick Ohizu was among a host of facilitators.
Speaking at the closing ceremony on Thursday, ZRCS vice-president Tsitsi Angela Sigauke who was standing in for ZRCS president Edison Mlambo, said the organisation was embracing youths in its activities, especially the volunteers who stirred the projects at the grassroots.
“ZRCS reinforces youth participation as intrinsic to strengthening its core business. In this context, volunteerism is critical to the meaningful engagement of the youths,” she said.
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She urged the youths to put to good use all they learned during the camp.
ZRCS National Youth Council treasurer Louisa Nsama said the youth camp, which was locally financed, would go a long way in helping the organisation, particularly at the grassroot level.
“Red Cross thrives on volunteerism and I think the training that we are doing here is to impart skills that will help us the youth stir the Red Cross ship. We have learnt a lot and we hope to take what we have conceptualised to our respective provinces,” she said.
She said part of the training was about community resilience aimed at empowering them so that they would be able to withstand shocks such as those caused by disasters.
Nsama said the bulk of the training was meant to give them ammunition as youths to stand on their own without external support when doing community projects.
“Most of our activities were mainly to equip us with skills that would enable us to stand on our own without external support,” she said.
Various youth clubs and youths were recognised and awarded certificates for outstanding humanitarian activities.
